Contents

Overview

Scream of the Shalka was designed to be an official
continuation of Doctor Who.[1]
At the time, there were no plans for a continuation of the
television series and plans for another movie were progressing very
slowly. The Shalka Doctor was intended to be the ninth incarnation,
as two lines in Scream of the Shalka imply: the Doctor
mentions that Andy
Warhol once wanted to paint "all nine" of him, and comments
that a dead cat has used up its nine lives, like he has. The Shalka
Doctor's claim to being the "Ninth Doctor" was also backed up by
BBC press releases.[2][3]

However, the 2005 series was announced in
September 2003 — about two months before the webcast could meet its
13 November release date.[4] This
led to immediate controversy about the "official" status of the
animated Ninth Doctor. Martin Trickey, executive producer of
The Scream of the Shalka, noted these concerns when he was
interviewed at the time of Shalka's release. "The BBC said
it was the ninth Doctor," he said, "so that's great. Is it part of
the canon? I don't know. There's a big argument raging on the
message board. I just hope people enjoy it. That's the main thing.
Whether people choose to see it as the official ninth doctor or not
is really up to them."[1]

As of 2009 it is almost certain that the Christopher Eccleston
is the definitive "Ninth Doctor":

BBC press releases and advertisements have firmly established
Eccleston as "the Ninth Doctor".[5]

The new series has also demonstrated this in two separate
episodes.

In the episode "School Reunion" the
Tenth Doctor tells Sarah Jane Smith that he's regenerated
"half a dozen times" since they last met — although the imprecision
of this colloquial phrase allows for several
different interpretations.

In family of blood the doctor is hiding as
John Smith who draws a picture of all his previous
incarnations.

The second televized evidence was the fourth Christmas special
of the new series: The Next Doctor. The ten incarnations
of the Doctor, to date, appear in this episode through an infostamp
projection. The footage for the Ninth doctor was of Christopher
Eccleston from The Parting of the Ways.

Further off-screen evidence is via the full screenshot of John
Smith's The Journal of Impossible Things from the episode Human Nature. In the
full screen shot there are sketches of all ten doctors, with only a
sketch of the Eccleston doctor appearing.

To date the so-called "Shalka Doctor" has appeared in only three
officially licensed Doctor Who products: the original
webcast, the novelisation of the webcast by Paul Cornell which was released by BBC Books, and the short
story "The Feast of the Stone" by Cavan Scott and Mark
Wright which has to date only been published on the BBC's "Cult
Vampire Magazine" webpage.[6]

However, the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel
The Gallifrey
Chronicles by Lance Parkin, briefly addresses the
conundrum of multiple ninth Doctors. In it, a Time Lord named Marnal looks through various
timestreams for the Eighth Doctor. At one point he observes that
the Doctor has "three ninth incarnations". This could refer to
Eccleston, the Shalka Doctor, and the version played by Rowan Atkinson in
the 1999 charity spoof, Doctor Who and the
Curse of Fatal Death. Although this theory of the Shalka
Doctor as a parallel universe ninth
Doctor would provide a kind of closure to the controversy, it
should be pointed out that the passage provides no positive
identification of any of the ninth Doctors Marnal sees.

The inclusion of the Shalka Doctor in Who canon is thus
very debatable. Due to the televised evidence presented above, the
Shalka Doctor is not part of the new TV series canon at the very
least.

Personality

To avoid capture by the Shalka, this Doctor tries to act as if he
is a detached alien observer. However, he still has respect for
human life and can not allow them to kill their hostage. Grant has
described his interpretation of the Doctor as "Sherlock Holmes
in space." This incarnation of the Doctor seems haunted by some
undisclosed past event, to the point where he actively opposes the
notion of Alison becoming a companion. For reasons likewise
unexplained, he travels with an android which contains the consciousness of the
Master (voiced by Derek Jacobi). The android Master does
hint, however, that the Doctor's previous companion may have met an
untimely end, perhaps explaining his initial reluctance to take on
a new travelling companion.

The Shalka Doctor had an appreciation for the finer things that
bordered on snobbery, although he shared with his other
incarnations an abhorrence of evil. His travels seemed to be
directed by an unseen power that he resented (possibly the Time Lords). This led to
his refusal to intervene in the Shalka invasion of the village of
Lannet until the death of a homeless woman raised his ire. He also
had an abrasive relationship with the military similar to how the
Third Doctor
treated UNIT early in his tenure.

Portrayal

Richard E. Grant had previously played the Doctor, albeit
briefly, in the 1999 Comic Relief
charity special Doctor Who and the
Curse of Fatal Death, when a series of explosions caused
the Doctor to rapidly regenerate; Grant's incarnation was intended
to be the Tenth. In the spoof, Grant's Doctor was characterised as
conceited, a trait associated with many of Grant's past acting
roles. For Shalka, Grant played the character straight,
with little of his trademark conceitedness. This charity special
does not run in the official Doctor Who continuity.